Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 117 - 115: The Titan’s 12 Skills
The Da Yun Ding Lan floated on the sea’s surface, its stealth mode activated.
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t visual invisibility. It was more of a counter-surveillance "stealth," capable of blocking radar and detection from sea beasts. However, it couldn’t evade direct line of sight, making it far from true invisibility.
Even so, it was one of its most practical modes.
The Da Yun Ding Lan was now equipped for both offense and defense, possessing close-in cannons with extremely high Attack Power and a Sea Patrol Radar.
SWOOSH!
With everything ready, Shi Ming piloted the Sun-Piercer. Like an arrow plunging into the sea, it vanished beneath the waves in an instant.
"Diving mode, engaged!"
"Stealth mode, engaged!"
Unlike the Da Yun Ding Lan, the Sun-Piercer’s small size allowed for true invisibility! It could vanish completely from the sight of people and sea beasts, its interior space included. Not only was it difficult for the radar of a General-class drifter to detect, but it was also nearly impossible to spot with the naked eye.
It was as if it had simply disappeared!
Now that it was upgraded to General-class, the Sun-Piercer’s stealth mode was even more formidable!
The canoe-shaped drifter moved at high speed as it dove rapidly. In just over twenty minutes, it had already traveled nearly a hundred nautical miles. Shi Ming stood inside the cabin, the peak of Mount Olympus faintly visible in the distance.
At the peak of Mount Olympus was an ancient ruin called the Pantheon. It was once the most sacred place in the Greece of the old world, but with the sinking of tectonic plates, its summit was now only a little over 1,000 meters below the sea’s surface.
There were no powerful sea beasts here, only schools of strange, ordinary fish swimming about.
The Temple of Zeus had become a home for the ocean’s fish.
Marveling at the vast changes wrought by time, Shi Ming continued to pilot the Sun-Piercer deeper.
The black dot on the Map of the Endless Sea grew more conspicuous.
A few D-rank sea beasts occasionally appeared.
But on this trip, Shi Ming was only here to gather intelligence and had no intention of fighting any sea beasts.
His plan was to use stealth mode to dive to a location where he could observe the Deep Sea Titan from a distance, learning its characteristics and attack patterns without being detected.
He had saved one use of his Eye of Intelligence, planning to activate it the moment he saw the S-rank sea beast.
This would most likely allow him to obtain deeper intelligence on the creature.
This area of the sea had a peculiar, oppressive feeling.
It was very similar to his encounter with the Rotting Whale—an experience where the very water seemed filled with a crushing pressure.
The deeper he dove, the more he felt the oppressive weight in the water.
This pressure didn’t come from the water, nor was it a symptom of thalassophobia. Rather, it felt like an overwhelming biological presence emanating from the solemn atmosphere of this place—a powerful, domineering force that was extremely unsettling.
Mount Olympus, once 3,000 meters high, had sunk with its tectonic plate during the Great Flood era, and a fracture had created a deep-sea trench.
Beneath this trench lay the habitat of the Deep Sea Titan.
Inside the Sun-Piercer, the General-class drifter felt like the safest of fortresses, carrying Shi Ming swiftly past the Twilight Layer and diving toward the depths of the Mount Olympus ruins.
...
...
...
Darkness was not the only feature of the seabed.
Shi Ming discovered that at the base of the mountain range, the once-solid rock had been eroded into a labyrinth of caverns. Their inner walls were covered with a biological membrane that seemed to pulsate, even emitting a faint phosphorescence.
Inside one of the caverns was a writhing chamber.
’A Cave Mother Insect?’
Shi Ming prepared to avoid it.
The Sun-Piercer, remaining in stealth mode, navigated through the trench.
This was already the deep sea and a necessary passage to the trench below. Fighting the Cave Mother Insect here could attract the attention of the Deep Sea Titan.
POP...
One of the writhing chambers burst in the water, releasing streams of tentacled spawn. Each was over a meter long and as thick as a human thigh. They easily withstood the immense pressure, their bodies dotted with eyespots of various shapes that swiveled around before they quickly dispersed.
On a nearby cliff face, the writhing spawn clung to the eroded, coral-covered rock like strands of seaweed.
They swayed back and forth, as if welcoming a guest from afar.
Shi Ming had excellent eyesight.
But in this situation, that wasn’t a good thing.
He saw that in the deepest part of the eroded cavern...
...lay a gigantic cyst, like a tumor growing on the seafloor.
Countless thick, translucent spawn continuously split off from this cyst and crawled all over the cavern walls. They then bored small holes into the rock, just large enough to fit inside, leaving only a single eye exposed.
The rock face of Mount Olympus looked as if it were embedded with countless writhing eyes.
Shi Ming fought to suppress his revulsion at the sight.
’Good. I got this close to the Cave Mother Insect without triggering its aggression. This means the Sun-Piercer’s current stealth mode can fool an A-rank sea beast.’
’The trench is just ahead.’
His nerves were taut, ready to activate the Sun-Piercer’s General-class ability at any moment.
’An S-rank sea beast. My first time facing an S-rank sea beast!’
Contrary to what he’d imagined, he felt no fear. Instead, a bone-deep excitement and eagerness surged within him!
...
As he entered the trench, an indescribable rhythm began to spread through the water.
It triggered the awakening of the Black Tortoise Bloodline within Shi Ming’s body.
Unseen by any, a silent confrontation had begun between the essences of two S-rank beasts, with Shi Ming’s body as the battlefield.
And then, finally, in the lightless abyss, Shi Ming caught a distant glimpse of the massive, god-like leviathan.
In a single glance, Shi Ming’s eyes captured a wealth of information—
Its head was like a sunken basalt fortress.
Its features were abstract.
Its colossal eyes were like deep whirlpools.
Its body was buried deep in the seabed, its true size impossible to gauge.
Its immense form was hidden in the darkness like a slumbering behemoth. Its skin was a layer of cooled, solidified black rock resembling an underwater mountain range, embedded with layers upon layers of giant shellfish fossils, as if bearing the weight of eons.
The moment he saw it, Shi Ming’s heart began to pound violently.
His Black Tortoise Bloodline fiercely rebelled against the Titan’s oppressive presence.
He wasted no time and immediately activated his Eye of Intelligence.
"Eye of Intelligence, acquire information!"
[BEEP~ BEEP~]
[Compiling information...]
[Searching. Confirming host’s coordinates... Search successful. Summarizing information... Information generated!]
[S-Rank Information: S-Rank Sea Beast Deep Sea Titan Investigation, Skill & Weakness Analysis]
’Yes!’
’This trip was worth it!’
Before Shi Ming could examine the details, a tremendous RUMBLE echoed through the water. An immensely powerful undercurrent surged forth, sweeping up the Sun-Piercer like a leaf in a storm.
If the General-class drifter hadn’t been so incredibly stable, it would have been flipped over or even torn to pieces!
The beast hadn’t even used an ability. A mere twitch was enough to produce such terrifying pressure.
’I have the intelligence. There’s no need for a direct confrontation.’
’Without reading the report, my chances of beating this thing alone are practically zero. It would take at least three or four S-rank Awakened working together to even have a chance of killing it.’
’Strategic retreat!’
’Sun-Piercer! Activate General ability!’
At three times the speed of sound, the Deep Sea Titan—despite being an S-rank beast—only faltered for a second, not realizing it had been spied upon.
Shi Ming forcibly suppressed the desire to fight that surged from the depths of his bloodline. Aboard the ship, he began to read the detailed intelligence report—
[Sea Beast Name: Deep Sea Titan.]
[Rank: 66]
[An ancient behemoth lurking in the deep sea, possessing the bloodline power of the Titans. In its normal state, its body resembles cooled volcanic rock. When it activates its bloodline power, it can transform into one of 12 different forms, depending on the skill it acquires. Activating its bloodline can produce a faint trace of "divinity." In a life-or-death crisis, it can overdraw its accumulated bloodline energy to unleash the once-per-millennium "Twelve Titans’ Fury."]
[Skill: Descent of the Titan]
[The Deep Sea Titan awakens its ancient bloodline power, randomly drawing one Titan skill from the following pool and transforming into the corresponding form.]
[2% chance: Divine Hall of Time.]
[4% chance: Galaxy Realm, Radiant Body.]
[10% chance: Memory Body, Dark Body, Bright Eyes of the Void, Chain of Order, Wisdom’s Revelation, Ten Thousand Tribulations Thunder Body, Oracle of Civilization, Wheel of Destiny, Sea’s Sigh.]
[Possible Methods of Elimination:]
...
